Tuesday, 21 January 2014

ASTR - New Waves

This New York duo call their music Noir n B, but the reality is that it’s far more colourful than that. For ASTR make bright sounding electronic pop music. It raves, it grooves, it gets down and dirty and it knows exactly what it’s doing. The beats reference hip-hop, but place them in a very pop context, in a similar way to how Lorde has done, although ASTR sound nothing like Lorde. Take a listen to Operate (video below), a track that has already been huge on the blogs ever since it first popped up on Neon Gold last April and resurfaces on their debut Varsity EP out today and see if you agree that like us, you can’t think of a more perfectly exact and modern song. Then there’s the moment where perms and shoulder pads become unequivocally cool again with R U With Me (a very Prince style title) a tune that rather like Haim takes a bunch of sounds that last time we looked nobody would be seen dancing to and somehow manages to make them sound fresh and exhilerating. Then there’s Blue Hawaii (streaming below), which makes us want to use words like ‘dope’ if it wasn’t for the fact that we’ve never used the word ‘dope’ in our lives before.So who are ASTR? They consist of Adam Pallin, a one time member of the band Little Jackie, who has also worked as a film and television composer. He's hooked up with vocalist Zoe Silverman, a former major label signee who has been around the music industry from birth being the daughter of Tom Silverman, the founder of Tommy Boy Records, a hip hop label who put out artists such as House of Pain and Queen Latifah. But let’s not dwell on their past, although it gives us a mild sense of who they are, for here the music can do the talking. ASTR = Pop music that shines (and makes us dance).ASTR - Operate(Video)